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The Banks Keep Winning Our Elections

Back in November, I wrote that the establishment had won the election. It’s nothing new, of course. The oligarchs have owned our politicians for decades, and will continue to do so if we – the people – don’t start fighting back effectively. Rubber-stamping the establishment’s candidates on election day isn’t the way to fight back. Neither is losing ourselves in their dog-and-pony shows, like the current anti-Trump hysteria, which deflects us from the anti-establishment war we should be waging. Not that there aren’t terrible Trump deeds that need opposition, mind you; we just shouldn’t lose sight of the main target or let neoliberal sell-outs place themselves at the front of our protests and marches to co-opt us.

Naturally, where the presidency was concerned, the establishment had already won the election back on July 26th, when the cheating DNC installed the vastly unpopular establishment candidate Hillary Clinton over the very popular people’s candidate Bernie Sanders as the “Democratic” nominee. From that moment, our country’s course was set for yet another establishment president (Clinton or Trump). Only a massive voter shift to the Green Party’s Jill Stein could have turned that ship around. But we voters apparently aren’t yet smart enough to break out of the DemPublican voter jail without a popular leader showing us the way. It’s time that we grew some brains — for example to build a third party for Bernie Sanders (or his close associates) to pull in millions of awakened voters who used to be part of the “Democratic” base but now know that the “Democratic” party has abandoned them. On the “down-ballot” ticket, we could still have accomplished a great deal in November by, for example, using the Berniecrats List for informed voting, a list I recommended repeatedly. But, it didn’t happen. Little bloggers like me spend our nightly hours trying to inform our fellow Americans so as to give us all the knowledge the corporate mainstream media deny us — and, yet, so many people who could subscribe to our blogs and recommend them to their friends, just don’t. Imagine if more people did, creating a chain reaction which would make all of us so much better informed… You can simply sign up for email notifications of new posts in the right sidebar here. But I digress.

With the establishment winning our elections, the question arises if there are parts of the establishment rising above others, a question also instrumental in understanding the trends of change in our economy where traditional capitalism has moved on not only to crony capitalism (which buys up our government and uses it as a cash cow) but also casino capitalism where, rather than profiting from the building and running of productive industries, the biggest capitalists – who are top investment bankers – merely shift investments around, gamble with them on the stock markets, and manipulate commodity markets, with the result of sucking ever more prosperity and wealth out of every aspect of people’s lives until life itself becomes unaffordable to more and more of us. (There is a short article which illuminates one of the many dirty tricks they use. It’s a good entry into the subject to help open people’s eyes: “Parasite Capitalism: The Economic Model of the 21st Century”)

So, in the economy, banksters have risen to the top. The point I wish to make in this article, is that the same is true in our politics. Trump, the “swamp drainer” has not only appointed so many billionaires that their combined net “worth” exceeds that of the bottom two thirds of Americans (if I understand this not so clearly done calculation right), but he has literally stuffed cabinet positions and other appointments with banksters, especially from the probably most criminal of all investment banks, Goldman Sachs, whose Wikipedia entry looks like an FBI rap sheet.

Trump is clearly a close friend of the big banks, or their straw man, or even puppet. That’s bad enough. But what about the alleged opposition, the “Democratic” Party? Well, we just had a new DNC chair elected for the “Democratic” Party (not democratically elected by the party’s base, of course — don’t ever expect democracy from the “Democratic” party or the GOP!): little known Tom Perez. What do we know about him and the banks? Personally, I haven’t been following his career, but there are some very red flags. For example, ex-president Obama threw his weight around to shoe him into the contest when it looked that the Sanders-friendly Keith Ellison would get the position despite the fact that our oligarchy prefers Clinton-friendly establishment operatives like Perez and the “Democratic” party has obliged it for the last three decades. That, if you recall Obama’s relationship with the big banks, is a clear link to the banksters. Remember how Obama adopted and continued Bush II’s bailout of the big banks (rather than bailing out the people) after they tanked the world’s economy? And how he used our (the people’s!) hard-earned tax dollars to do so when so many of us lost our homes, jobs, pensions, and careers, doing next to nothing for us…? And that wasn’t all! Unlike in prior bubble bursts, none of the culprits went to jail. Obama’s administration saw to that! Indictments were not even attempted! Obama, who had received massive campaign contributions from the banksters in 2008 as the banking crisis was brewing, and who – just like Trump – made many bankster appointments, and who gave Goldman Sachs a $20 billion tax dollar gift (a handsome return on their 2008 campaign investment of $994,795 wouldn’t you say?), was a straw man of the big banks in the Oval Office, just like Trump is now. And so, the banksters are holding the new administration AND the DNC’s chairmanship in their hands. Winners across the board. And we, the people, have once again lost across the board.

Oh, and if you think that the link I just described is weak, a brief Internet search quickly reveals more links of Tom Perez to the banks. He has an established record of not taking on the banks; both at the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor. An article in The Intercept goes over Perez’ record and concludes: “Both Perez and Ellison support pro-labor policies. But Ellison shows that he also wants to oppose concentrated financial power. Perez represents the finance-friendly status quo that has relegated Democrats to minority status.”

So, I hope that you who read this will keep the fire in you burning to fight our corrupt establishment, and that you will share information like this with your friends and family, and anyone else you have political conversations with — letting them know what is happening behind the scenes. This blog is a regular source for information and analysis that can keep us all informed and shape our strategy for pushback as well as a vision for a better world. I urge you to revisit and refer your friends and family, as well.

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